


The sword or the scabbard?

by oconel



Category: Merlin (BBC)
Genre: Arthur - Freeform, Crack, M/M, Merlin - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-17
Updated: 2009-11-17
Packaged: 2017-10-03 05:22:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oconel/pseuds/oconel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Merlin has a bit of trouble with Arthur's sword.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The sword or the scabbard?

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Challenge 1, prompt #9: "A lot of unintentional sword innuendo. That's it. Just unintentional sword innuendo"
> 
> Thank you to for her encouragement and ideas, and thank you to for her great beta. Some text was stolen shamelessly from [this thread](http://perspectives.com/forums/view_topic.php?id=194499&forum_id=102). Also, I got very useful information from the Spanish Association of Ancient Fencing and the Wikipedia. I'm never going to look again at a sword without smirking...

"Then Sir Arthur looked on the sword, and liked it passing well.  
Whether liketh you better, said Merlin, the sword or the scabbard?  
Me liketh better the sword, said Arthur."

** Le Morte D'Arthur, by Thomas Malory **

 

The day started with Arthur inspecting his knights' equipment. Of course, he had to drag Merlin along to the armoury so that he could have some fun picking on him, while his manservant took care of his armour. While Arthur was inspecting a particularly rusty rerebrace, Merlin spoke:

"Why isn't yours the longest?"

"What?" asked Arthur, clearly baffled.

"You're the prince," explained Merlin. "Shouldn't yours be the longest? Bar the king, maybe... but I--"

"What are you talking about?" cut in Arthur.

"Your sword," said Merlin slowly as if he thought the Prince had taken a blow to his head. "I expected your sword to be the longest."

Arthur looked at Merlin with dismay. "I thought I had explained to you that each sword is tailored specifically for each knight, depending on their height, strength, etc."

"Mmm... Maybe you have?" answered Merlin with a look half apologetic, half amused, and Arthur could bet that the idiot had not listened to him when he explained it all the first time, nor the second. "So, each knight has a different sword, then?" Merlin asked again while he polished Arthur's pauldrons without any enthusiasm.

Arthur sighed. "Yes. Is this conversation going anywhere, Merlin?"

He only got a shrug as an answer. The silence stretched for several minutes.

"If you were right I'd have known from the beginning Lancelot was not a noble," explained Arthur. "But he did not have a particularly small sword."

Melin seemed to consider that. "You have a point."

Arthur rolled his eyes.

 

****

 

"Merlin."

"_Mer_lin."

"MERlin!"

"Sorry, Sire," said Merlin coming out of his reverie. He was mentally repeating the spell he had been trying yesterday and wondering what had gone wrong.

Arthur blinked and Merlin bit his lip. Damn, had he called The Prat '_Sire_'?

"Have you seen my sword?"

"I'd really like to," mumbled Merlin to himself.

"What did you say?"

"Uh... Oh... Yes, I think your sword was in my room. Yes. Last time I saw it it was on my bed."

"What are you waiting for, then?" said Arthur impatiently. "Go and fetch it. I'd like to train. Today, if possible."

Merlin rushed to his room where Arthur's sword should be, though sadly he had no idea what he was going to do about it. He had stayed up all night looking for a spell to revert the damage and had not been able to find any. In the end, he decided to tell Gaius, even though he knew the man was going to chastise him for using magic inappropriately.

He went into his room and grabbed what once had been Arthur's sword, and hid it on his back.

"Gaius," Merlin said trying to look as innocent as possible, "I have a problem..."

"What is it?" Gaius said arching an eyebrow with suspicion.

"I know you've always told me not to use magic carelessly... But yesterday... I was sharpening Arthur's sword and this is what happened."

Merlin showed Gaius what looked like a long cheese bar (it smelled like it, too; Merlin had not dared to try it), that moved a little flaccidly in Merlin's hand.

"Merlin," said Gaius exasperated, "what am I supposed to do with you?"

Merlin smiled charmingly. "Help me?"

 

***

 

Merlin took two hours to come back with Arthur's sword. Two whole hours to go to his room and bring his sword back. When finally Merlin opened the door, Arthur was fuming. He wanted to train and had almost gone to Merlin's quarters to fetch the sword himself (no matter how unworthy of a prince that might be).

"Got lost on the way to your room? And on the way back as well?"

Merlin grinned at him, apparently ignoring his words.

"Here. A long, very hard and definitely straight sword."

"Did you hurt your head?" Arthur asked as he snatched the sword from Merlin's hands. Maybe Uther was right in believing that his manservant had a mental illness.

"No, Sire."

"Good," said Arthur with a smirk creeping in his lips. "Then you can practise with me today."

Arthur loved to see Merlin's face of dismay as they walked toward the training grounds. Once they were both ready, Arthur started to throw blows at Merlin mercilessly.

"Will you ever learn how to handle a sword, Merlin?" said Arthur between blows.

"If you took your time in teaching me how to do it properly, you might get better results," Merlin managed to say with laboured breathing.

At first, Merlin even managed to parry some of the blows, but in the end he stopped trying to block the attacks and fell on the floor.

"Arthur," he panted, "if you keep that up, I'm going to end up with your sword buried in me!"

"Really, Merlin? Then stand up and show me that you care," said Arthur waving his sword around.

Merlin sat up and watched Arthur's sword with narrowed eyes, and Arthur poked him with it.

"Oh, c'mon. This shouldn't be as painful as you make it look," he said. "You know I don't really want to stab you to death."

Merlin did not seem so sure about it, and Arthur could tell from his expression before he said, "No, you just want to thrust that sword of yours into me. Repeatedly."

Arthur smiled innocently. "Not just yet. I'm just warming up."

Merlin rolled his eyes and slumped back on the grass. "Go ahead. Do whatever you like. I'm not going to stop you. Just...I'd appreciate if it were fast and painless."

"You're no fun."

Merlin just smiled brightly.

 

***

 

Soon after that, Arthur decided that Merlin --Arthur was terribly unimaginative when it came to blaming people-- had ruined his training for the day, so he decided to ruin the rest of Merlin's day in return.

Firstly, Merlin was supposed to polish Arthur's sword. Energetically. And then he was supposed to oil it carefully. Allegedly because Merlin had touched the blade with his naked fingers and that would make the steel rust. Arthur had not bothered to explain how or why. What he had explained in an excruciatingly detailed way, was the proper way Merlin should carefully oil the sword before putting it into the new scabbard.

The scabbard was part of his chores too. It was a new one, and the sword went into the scabbard very slowly because it was very tight. Merlin had to make it fit to Arthur's sword by filling a bathtub with water and letting the sword sit in the scabbard for an hour underwater so the leather would stretch and mold to its form. Merlin knew he would (probably) have no problems doing that with magic, but after the _small _mishap with Arthur's sword, he did not want to end up with a torn scabbard. If he cocked it up, next time Arthur would make him clean the sword with his tongue.

So he ended up doing everything by hand, just in case.

When he finished, his bed was a mess, the oil everywhere, and Merlin wondered why he had chosen such a bad place to work with the sword. Comfortable. Right. Time to take the sword to Arthur's rooms to allow him to "inspect the results of his work".

 

***

 

Arthur unsheathed his sword slowly, with his eyes closed, to better feel the tightness of the scabbard around the blade. Then, he examined the scabbard thoroughly, running his fingers all over it, admiring the metal fittings. Then he handed the scabbard to Merlin and checked that nothing was obstructing its throat, and therefore the blade going through it. Arthur nodded when his fingers came out a bit oily: Merlin had oiled the sword properly. He told Merlin to keep the scabbard still and he drew and sheathed the sword once and again, slowly, focusing again on the feeling of the sword inside the scabbard. When he finally was satisfied, he said, "Not bad. It's still a bit tight but not enough for the sword to get stuck."

Merlin could not help to be proud of himself. "Yes, I reckon you don't want it to get stuck in the middle of a fight. It'd be a bit anticlimactic."

"I'd say frustrating," said Arthur imagining the situation vividly. He winced and decided to banish the thought from his mind by examining the blade. "Mmmm."

"Thank you." Damn. Merlin knew him too well to know that was a compliment. "I've worked hard and carefully with it to bring it to that state; I've polished the sword several times, oiled it with care then I put it into the scabb--"

"Merlin," Arthur cut in, "I don't care. I only care about the results."

"Well," said Merlin with pride, "you seem to like the results."

"I never said that," stated Arthur and Merlin just grinned. Arthur sighed wondering when his manservant had learnt to read him so well. "All right, it's not _that_ bad." Merlin grinned even more and Arthur could not decide if he should get annoyed or smile back. In the end, a smile crept up slowly on his lips.

"You look less of a prat when you're smiling," Merlin said.

Arthur arched an eyebrow. "And that's the kind of comment you think is flattering."

"Considering your level of pratness..."

Arthur thrust the sword in Merlin's hands. "I think you're going to have to polish it again." Merlin groaned. "And I'm going to watch and enjoy it."

It was Arthur's turn to grin.

_-fin-_


End file.
